Red, White & Blue Salad

This could possibly be my most favorite salad in the world.  It is absolutely delicious.  Sweet Basil Cafe is a yummy restaurant in Florence, Alabama that serves this wonderful salad.  I have to say, I cannot even get my husband to go here, because he thinks it is too "fru fru" or girly.  He is missing out, but I fixed this salad for him just last week and he really liked it.  It is so easy.  The combination of fruits with bleu cheese and the poppyseed vinaigrette dressing make it out of this world!

This salad includes mixed greens, grilled chicken (or no chicken), strawberries, blueberries, bleu cheese crumbles and poppyseed vinaigrette dressing (tastes just like Sweet Basil - thanks to my dear friend Scarlett who let me steal the recipe from her).

Baby spring mix greens (Sam's) and grilled chicken

Strawberries

Blueberries

Bleu cheese crumbles

Sesame Poppyseed Vinaigrette

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp poppy seed

1 tsp sesame seed

1 tsp grated onion

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp salt

1 tsp dry mustard

6 Tbs white vinegar or apple cidar vinegar

1 cup vegetable oil

Mix together the sugar and seeds. Next whisk in the vinegar and oil 1

tablespoon at a time, alternating each one (to dissolve the sugar).

Then, whisk in the other ingredients. Refrigerate.

Such a yummy and beautiful salad.  You have to try it!

Cutie Patootie Paper Pack and a FREEBIE!

Here it is...my new cutie patootie collection!  The wordart shown below is yours for free!  All you have to do is follow our blog and it's your to use.  Just click on the download link below the image to get your free "cutie patootie" wordart. The fonts came from Amanda's Fonts...if you haven't downloaded her fonts yet you're missing out.  Check out her cute little website!

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Visit our shop if you would like to have the newly listed paper packs to match your new wordart.

  There are two new paper packs available in the "cutie patootie" collection....an 8 pack of digital paper and a huge 50 pack of paper!!

If you purchase either pack of paper you will receive the 10 pack of solid textured papers for free!  Just visit our shop.

Hope you like the new "Cutie Patootie" collection!  Thank you again for all of the encouragement!  It seriously brightens our day.  Come back soon!

Mini Badge Album Tutorial and a FREEBIE!!

Some of you many have already seen these cute little mini badge albums.  They are so easy to make and they're the perfect size little photo albums for your purse or diaper bags.  You can even make these albums as gifts for mother's day, birthdays, etc.  Read on to find out more about them.

I made some mini badge album layouts from my new digital scrapbook paper pack called "cutie patootie."  I'll hopefully have it available in our Etsy shop in a few days.  These mini badge album layouts are FREE for you to use!  They are 3.25 x 2.38 and fit perfectly inside the 12 pack of badge holders you get at Office Depot.

The only thing you have to do to get this album kit for free is become a follower to our blog!  That's it!  Then it's yours to use!  Click on the DOWNLOAD link below the image to get your free mini badge album files.  They have been saved as png's with transparent holes for your pictures.

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If you do not have an image editing program at home (such as Photoshop Elements)....no worries!  You do not have to use digital layouts.  You can use regular scrapbook paper and elements to create your own layout by cutting and pasting the same way as shown above.  

Once you are finished creating your digital pages, just print them out.  I used a paper that's a little bit thicker than regular print paper but whatever you have will work fine.  

You can get this 12 pack of badge holders at Office Depot.

Just cut your images out then insert them into the badge holders.  You can use front and back!

Use some ribbon to hold the pages together and then you're done!  You may want to add a little fabric glue or super glue to help the bow stay.  Super cute and super easy!  Caley wanted me to make this one for her to keep in her purse.  

Please send us a link if you decide to use our layouts!  We would love to see your pictures!!

Thank y'all for visiting!!

Chicken With Chive and Onion Cream Cheese

Try this quick and easy recipe for a yummy snack.

Canned chicken, chive and onion cream cheese and your favorite crackers

Drain canned chicken

Mix cream cheese with chicken

Enjoy with your favorite crackers!

We're giving away 1 free digital paper pack from our shop!!

Hey y'all!  We thought we'd try something a little different this week.  If you're interested, here's a fun way to earn a paper pack...of your choice...from our shop for free!!

All you have to do is save and add the image below to a post in your blog, with a link back to us, and you can pick out one item in our shop for FREE!  Just leave us a comment where you posted and which paper pack you would like and we'll send you the link!!  This offer ends Feb 12th.

Thanks so much for stopping by!!  We love visitors!!!

For those of you who don't know what digital scrapbooking is, we hope to have some information on here soon for ya!!

Here are a couple of new paper packs in our shop.

            HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!

Crockpot Chicken Chili and Potato Soup (#2)

We have had a wonderful weekend celebrating my daughter's fifth birthday.  We were able to spend lots of time with family eating and enjoying each other's company.  In between a little girl's tea party and LOTS of yummy birthday cake, my mom decided to whip up a couple of soup recipes to go along with some sandwiches.  Somehow, my mom has kept these tucked away in her favorite cookbook.  I'm still not sure how all this time has passed by and we had never tasted these delicious soups.

Brooke and I knew we had to pass along these wonderful recipes to all of you.  Hope you try them and enjoy them as much as we did.

CHICKEN CHILI

20 oz chicken cooked and shredded

48 oz chicken broth

1 large medium picante sauce

1 small mild picante

2 cans Great Northern beans

1 can pinto beans

(saute the next 3 ingredients together)

1 medium onion

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp cumin

Saute onion, garlic powder and cumin, then add all together.  Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes (or put in crock pot all day)

Potato Soup (#2)

8-10 good size potatoes (diced)

1 small onion chopped

Cook until tender, then add:

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can cream style corn

1/2 lb Velveeta cheese

Add salt and pepper to taste

And the Winner is.....

We have a winner!! #76....Carina! Congratulations!!

We were so excited that we had 85 people to enter this giveaway!! YEY!! We had so much fun reading every single comment posted. Some were pretty hilarious and some we were very jealous of! Reading all your comments made us wish that we could give out a ton more gift cards. :(

Thank you so much for visiting our blog and keep checking back for our next giveaway! :)

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind." Luke 10:27

New Digital Scrapbook Paper Pack...FREE

Here's another digital scrapbook paper pack for you! This paper pack includes 10 digital sheets that measure 12"x12" at 300dpi. "Citrus Zest" was made by using simple patterns and bright colors with a little texture. I hope you can use it!!

This truly is my new passion. I love love love designing and making new things. I'm certainly still a newbie to the digital design world but hopefully I'll continue to learn new things everyday. If anybody out there has some great tips to share with us, please feel free, we would all love to know!

You may use this paper however you wish, personal or commercial...cards, invitations, digital scrapbook quick pages, etc. Please do not claim it as your own :( Also, if you would like to use the paper for web design, feel free! We would love for you to add one of the buttons on our sidebar to your webpage. :)

Also, if you do use this paper, we would love to hear back from you with a link to your design!!

Enjoy!

For other digital Freebies go HERE.

Ohh...and if you haven't had a chance to enter your name for a VICTORIA'S SECRET gift card giveaway, you still have time!!! The contest ends tomorrow night (Wednesday, Feb. 3) at 8:00 pm. Click here to enter!!

To download this paper pack just click on the download link below the image to the left.

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It's a Valentine's Giveaway!!

To celebrate Valentine's Day that's coming up soon, we thought y'all might like a $25 gift card to Victoria's Secret!! Whether you're single or married, hopefully everybody could use a new bra, some panties, pajamas, or some amazing bath products.

To enter this giveaway, tell us your plans for Valentine's Day. Maybe you plan on sitting on the couch and watching a movie, or going out to a nice dinner with the person you love, or doing absolutely nothing at all...you hate Valentine's Day.

This giveaway will end Wednesday night at 8:00 pm. The winner will be announced Thursday morning. Make sure you leave your email address so we can reach you.

Good luck!!

Elastic Fabric Covered Headband Tutorial

These cute fabric covered headbands are so easy to make and we're so glad we finally have a tutorial here on our website to share with you.  Paige found one of my headbands that she had kept from college and so I took a close look at it and thought, "I think I can make this."  After trial and error on a few drawn out patterns, we finally decided this was the size we liked.  

First thing you need to do is download and print out the pattern that I drew out.  You can get it HERE.  Make sure you cut out the pattern on the outside of the black line.  I think this might be a tad bit thinner but you can make it wider if you'd like. 

The printed drawing is only half of the final pattern so make sure you place the wide part of the pattern on the folded edge of the fabric.

I doubled my fabric so that I could get both sides at one time.

This is what they should look like after you've cut them out.

You will also need some light interfacing to help stabilize the headband.  You'll only need one of these.

Next, you need to iron down about 1/4 inch on each end of your fabric.

Your interfacing will need to be cut, on each end, about 1/4 inch so that it will be equal length with the fabric.

Now, you need to layer your three pieces like the picture above.  Right side of one piece of fabric facing up, the next piece of fabric wrong side facing up, and then you can stick the end of your interfacing inside the fold.

Then, sew along each side of your layers, all the way to the end.  

The easiest way, and cleanest way, that I've found to trim the thread is to use fingernail clippers.

You can cut very close with the clippers so you can't see a string at all.

You will need a medium sized safety pin to turn the headband inside out.  Put the safety pin through the side of fabric with the interfacing.

You will need push the safety pin through the inside of the headband.  At first, it's kind of tricky to get started but then it should pull through easily.

Here's a better picture of how it comes through.  You'll need to iron it flat after this.

You will also need some elastic.  I think this is 3/4 inch wide, but you can use smaller if you prefer.

Place one end of your elastic inside one end of your heaband.

Then sew across the edge so hold the elastic in place.  Then trim your thread.

Do the same thing to the other end.

Finally, you will need to stitch around the edge of each side of the headband.  Trim your thread.

Then, you're done!

It only takes about 15 minutes!!